Genre features of the novel “Crime and Punishment. Genre and stylistic originality of the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" Genre of Dostoevsky's novel crime and punishment

Features of the genre of the novel "Crime and Punishment"

The genre originality of this novel by F.M. Dostoevsky lies in the fact that this work cannot be absolutely definitely attributed to the genres already known and tested by Russian literature, since it contains features of different styles.

Detective traits

First of all, formally, the novel can be attributed to the detective genre:

• the plot is based on a crime and its disclosure,
• there is a criminal (Raskolnikov),
• there is an intelligent investigator who understands the criminal, leads him to exposure (Porfiry Petrovich),
• there is a motive for the crime,
• there are distracting moves (Mikolka's confession), evidence.

But none of the readers would even think of calling "Crime and Punishment" a simple detective story, because everyone understands that the detective basis of the novel is only a pretext for setting other tasks.

New type of novel - psychological

This work also does not fit into the framework of a traditional European novel.

Dostoevsky created a new genre - the psychological novel.

It is based on man as a great mystery, into which the author looks along with the reader. What leads a person, why is this or that capable of sinful acts, what happens to a person who has crossed the line?

The atmosphere of the novel is the world of the humiliated and insulted, where there are no happy, no unfaithful. In this world, reality and fantasy are combined, therefore, they occupy a special place in the novel, which do not predict the fate of the hero in the same way as in a traditional novel. No, the dreams of the protagonist reflect the state of his psyche, his soul after the murder of the old woman, project reality (a dream about killing a horse), accumulate the philosophical theory of the hero (Rodion's last dream).

Each hero is put in a situation of choice.

This choice puts pressure on a person, makes him go forward, go without thinking about the consequences, go only in order to find out what he is capable of, in order to save another or himself, in order to destroy himself.

Polyphonic solution of the figurative system

Another genre feature of such novels is polyphony, polyphony.

In the novel, those who conduct conversations, utter monologues, shout something from the crowd - and each time it is not just a phrase, it is a philosophical problem, a matter of life or death (dialogue between an officer and a student, Raskolnikov's monologues, his dialogues with Sonya, with Svidrigailov, Luzhin, Dunechkoy, Marmeladov's monologue).

Dostoevsky's heroes carry either hell or heaven in their souls. So, in spite of the horrors of the profession, it carries in the soul paradise, its sacrifice, its faith and save it from the hell of life. Such a hero, in Dostoevsky's opinion, is subordinate to the devil in his mind and chooses hell, but at the last moment, when the hero looks into the abyss, he recoils from it and goes to inform on himself. There are also heroes of Hell in Dostoevsky's novels. They have long and deliberately chosen hell not only with their minds, but also with their hearts. And their hearts were hardened. Such is the story of Svidrigailov.

For the heroes of hell, one way out is death.

Heroes like Raskolnikov are always intellectually superior to the rest: it's not for nothing that everyone recognizes Raskolnikov's mind, Svidrigailov expects some new word from him. But Raskolnikov is pure in heart, his heart is full of love and compassion (for the girl on the boulevard, for his mother and sister, for Sonechka and her family).

The human soul as the basis of psychological realism

The understanding of the human soul cannot be unambiguous, that is why there is so much unsaid in Dostoevsky's novels (in Crime and Punishment too).

Raskolnikov mentions the reason for the murder several times, but neither he nor the other heroes can finally decide why he killed. Of course, first of all, he is guided by a false theory, subduing him, tempting with verification, forcing him to raise the ax. It is also unclear whether Svidrigailov killed his wife or not.

Unlike Tolstoy, who himself explains why the hero acts this way and not otherwise, Dostoevsky makes the reader, along with the hero, experience some events, dream, and in all this daily confusion of inconsistent actions, obscure dialogues and monologues, independently find a pattern.

Description of the situation plays a huge role in the genre of the psychological novel. It is generally accepted that it itself fits the mood of the heroes. The city becomes the hero of the story. The city is dusty, dirty, a city of crime and suicide.

The peculiarity of Dostoevsky's artistic world is that his heroes go through a dangerous psychological experiment, letting in "demons", dark forces. But the writer believes that in the end the hero will make his way through them to the light. But each time the reader stops before this riddle of overcoming "demons", because there is no definite answer.

This inexplicable always remains in the structure of the writer's novels.

Materials are published with the personal permission of the author - Ph.D. Maznevoy O.A. (see "Our Library")

The works of F.M. Dostoevsky is included in the golden fund of world literature, his novels are read all over the world, they still do not lose their relevance. "Crime and Punishment" is one of such eternal works, touching upon the themes of faith and unbelief, strength and weakness, humiliation and greatness. The author masterfully draws the setting, immerses the reader in the atmosphere of the novel, helping to better understand the characters and their actions, making them think.

In the center of the plot is Rodion Raskolnikov, a student who is mired in poverty. And this is not just a lack of money for some kind of pleasure, this is poverty that destroys, drives you crazy. This is a closet that looks like a coffin, rags and not knowing if you will sing tomorrow. The hero is forced to leave the university, but cannot improve his affairs in any way, he feels the injustice of his position, sees around the same disadvantaged and humiliated.

Raskolnikov is proud, sensitive and smart, the atmosphere of poverty and injustice presses on him, which is why a terrible and destructive theory is born in his head. It consists in the fact that people are divided into lower ("ordinary") and higher ("people proper"). The former are only needed to maintain a population of people, they are useless. But the latter move civilization forward, put forward completely new ideas and goals that can be achieved by any means. For example, the hero compares himself to Napoleon and comes to the conclusion that he is also capable of changing the world and setting a price for change. In this sense, he is no different from the old woman-pawnbroker who evaluated the things brought to her. Be that as it may, Rodion decided to test this theory on himself ("Am I trembling creature or do I have the right?"), Killing the old woman-pawnbroker and not only, saving thousands of people from her tyranny, and correcting his own financial situation.

Why did Raskolnikov still kill the old money-giver?

The hero hesitates for a long time and nevertheless confirms his decision after a meeting with the official Marmeladov, who drinks black, leading himself, his wife Katerina Ivanovna, her children, and daughter Sonya into poverty (she is generally forced to work as a prostitute to help the family) ... Marmeladov understands his fall, but he cannot help himself. And when he was crushed drunk by a horse, the situation of the family was even more dire. It was these people who were ruined by poverty, and he decided to help. Comparing their plight with the unfair contentment of Alena Ivanovna, the hero came to the conclusion that his theory is correct: society can be saved, but this salvation will require human sacrifice. Having decided and committed a murder, Raskolnikov falls ill and feels lost to people (“I didn't kill an old woman ... I killed myself”). The hero cannot accept the love of Dunya's mother and sister, the care of Razumikhin's friend.

Raskolnikov's doubles: Luzhin and Svidrigailov

Svidrigailov is also a double, who tried to seduce Dunya. He is also a criminal, he is guided by the principle "a single evil is permissible" if the final goal is good. " It would seem that it is similar to Rodion's theory, but that was not the case: its goal should be good only from a hedonistic point of view and for Svidrigailov himself. If the hero did not see her as pleasure for himself, then he did not notice anything good. It turns out that he did evil for the good of himself, and, moreover, for the good of his depravity. If Luzhin wanted a caftan, that is, material well-being, then this hero longed to satisfy his base passions and nothing more.

Raskolnikov and Sonya Marmeladova

Tormented and languishing, Raskolnikov approaches Sonya, who also broke the law, like the hero. But the girl remained pure in her soul, she is more a martyr than a sinner. She sold her innocence for a symbolic 30 rubles, as Judas sold Christ for 30 pieces of silver. At this cost, she saved the family, but betrayed herself. The vicious environment did not prevent her from remaining a deeply religious girl and taking what was happening as a necessary sacrifice. Therefore, the author notes that the vice did not touch her spirit. With her timid demeanor, her incessant shame, the girl contradicted the vulgarity and insolence of the representatives of her profession.

Sonya reads to Rodion about the resurrection of Lazarus, and he confesses to the murder, believing in his own resurrection. He did not confess to the investigator Porfiry Petrovich, who already knew about his guilt, did not confess to his mother, sister, Razumikhin, but chose Sonya, feeling salvation in her. And this intuitive feeling was confirmed.

The meaning of the epilogue in the novel "Crime and Punishment"

However, Raskolnikov did not repent at all, he was only upset that he could not stand the moral torment and turned out to be an ordinary person. Because of this, he again experiences a spiritual crisis. Finding himself in hard labor, Rodion looks down on the prisoners and even at Sonya, who followed him. The convicts answer him with hatred, but Sonya is trying to make Raskolnikov's life easier, because she loves him with all her pure soul. The prisoners reacted sensitively to the affection and kindness of the heroine, they understood her silent feat without words. Sonya remained a martyr to the end, trying to atone for both her sin and the sin of her beloved.

In the end, the truth is revealed to the hero, he repents of the crime, his soul begins to revive, and he is imbued with "endless love" for Sonya. The hero's readiness for a new life is symbolically expressed by the author in the gesture when Rodion participates in the mysteries of the Bible. In Christianity, he finds the consolation and humility necessary for his proud character to restore inner harmony.

"Crime and Punishment": the history of the creation of the novel

F.M. Dostoevsky did not immediately come up with a title for his work, he had versions of "On trial", "The Tale of a Criminal," and the title we know appeared at the end of the work on the novel. The meaning of the title "Crime and Punishment" is revealed in the composition of the book. In the beginning, Raskolnikov, gripped by the delusions of his theory, kills an old money-lender, violating moral laws. Further, the author debunks the hero's delusions, Rodion himself suffers, then ends up in hard labor. This is his punishment for putting himself above everyone else. Only repentance gave him a chance to save his soul. The author also shows the inevitability of punishment for any crime. And this punishment is not only legal, but also moral.

In addition to the variability in the title, the novel originally had a different concept. While in hard labor, the writer conceived the novel as a confession of Raskolnikov, wishing to show the spiritual experience of the hero. Further, the scale of the work became larger, he could not be limited to the sensations of one hero, so F.M. Dostoevsky burned the almost finished novel. And he began anew, already as the modern reader knows him.

The subject of the work

The main themes of "Crime and Punishment" are the themes of poverty and oppression of the majority of society, which no one cares about, as well as themes of rebellion and personal delusions under the yoke of social disorder and suffocating poverty. The writer wanted to convey to the readers his Christian ideas about life: for harmony in the soul, you need to live morally, according to the commandments, that is, not to yield to pride, selfishness and lust, but to do good to people, love them, sacrificing even your own interests for the good of society. That is why at the end of the epilogue Raskolnikov repents and comes to faith. The problem of false beliefs, raised in the novel, is still relevant today. The theory of the protagonist about permissiveness and the crime of morality for the sake of good goals leads to terror and arbitrariness. And if Raskolnikov overcame the split in his soul, repented and came to harmony, overcoming the problem, then in larger cases this is not the case. Wars began because some rulers decided that the lives of thousands of people for their goals could be easily sacrificed. That is why the novel, written in the 19th century, does not lose its sharpness of meaning to this day.

"Crime and Punishment" is one of the greatest works of world literature, imbued with humanism and faith in man. Despite the seeming depressiveness of the narrative, there is hope for the best, that you can always be saved and saved.

According to the genre, Crime and Punishment (1866) is a novel, the main place in which is occupied by social and philosophical problems of contemporary Russian life for the writer. In addition, in Crime and Punishment, genre signs can be noted: a detective story (the reader knows from the very beginning who the killer of the old woman pawnbroker is, but the detective intrigue persists to the end - Raskolnikov admits, will he fall into the trap of investigator Porfiry Petrovich or will he slip out?), Everyday essay (a detailed description of the poor quarters of St. Petersburg), a publicistic article (Raskolnikov's article "On the Crime"), spiritual scripture (quotes and paraphrases from the Bible), etc.

This novel can be called social because Dostoevsky portrays the life of the inhabitants of the slums of St. Petersburg. The theme of the work is to show the inhuman living conditions of the poor, their hopelessness and anger. The idea of ​​"Crime and Punishment" is that the writer condemns the society of his day, which allows its citizens to live in hopeless need. Such a society is criminal: it condemns weak, defenseless people to death and at the same time generates a retaliatory crime. These thoughts are expressed in the confession of Marmeladov, which he pronounces in a dirty tavern in front of Raskolnikov (1, II).

Describing the poverty and misery of the Marmeladov family, the Raskolnikov family, Dostoevsky continues the noble tradition of Russian literature - the theme of the "little man". Classical Russian literature often portrayed the torment of the "humiliated and insulted" and attracted public attention and sympathy to people who found themselves, even through their own fault, at the "bottom of life."

Dostoevsky shows in detail the life of the poor Petersburg quarters. It depicts Raskolnikov's room, which looks like a closet, Sonya's ugly dwelling, a passage-corridor room where the Marmeladov family huddles. The author describes the appearance of his poor heroes: they are not only poorly dressed, but very poorly, so that it is a shame to appear on the street. This concerns Raskolnikov when he first appears in the novel. Marmeladov, met by a beggar student in the tavern, “was dressed in a black, old, completely torn tailcoat, with crumbling buttons. Only one still held on to the braids, and it was on her that he buttoned up. A shirt-front stuck out from under the nanke vest, all crumpled, soiled and flooded ”(1, II). In addition, all the poor heroes are starving in the literal sense of the word: Katerina Ivanovna's little children cry from hunger, Raskolnikov's head is constantly spinning from hunger. From the internal monologues of the protagonist, from the confession of Marmeladov, from the half-insane cries of Katerina Ivanovna before her death, it is clear that people are driven to the limit of suffering by poverty by that unsettled life, that they very keenly feel their humiliation. Marmeladov exclaims in confession: “Poverty is not a vice ... But poverty, my dear sir, poverty is a vice, sir. In poverty, you still retain your nobility of innate feelings, in poverty, no one ever. For poverty, they do not even drive them out with a stick, but sweep them out of the company of men with a broom, so that it would be all the more insulting ... ”(1, II).

Despite his open sympathy for these heroes, Dostoevsky does not try to embellish them. The writer shows that both Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov and Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov are largely to blame for their sad fate. Marmeladov is a sick alcoholic who is ready to rob even his little children for the sake of vodka. He does not hesitate to come to Sonya and ask her for the last thirty kopecks for a drink, although he knows how she earns this money. He realizes to himself that he is acting unworthily in relation to his own family, but nevertheless he gets drunk to the cross. When he tells Raskolnikov about his last binge, he is very worried that the children probably did not eat anything for five days, unless Sonya brought at least a little money. He sincerely regrets that his own daughter lives on a yellow ticket, but he uses her money himself. Raskolnikov understood this well: “Oh yes Sonya! What a well, however, they managed to dig and use it! " (1, II).

Dostoevsky's ambiguous attitude towards Raskolnikov. On the one hand, the writer sympathizes with the student, who must earn a penniless living with penny lessons and translations. The author shows that the antihuman theory of "creatures" and "heroes" was born in the sore head of the protagonist, when he was tired of honestly fighting shameful poverty, as he saw that scoundrels and thieves were flourishing around. On the other hand, Dostoevsky portrays Raskolnikov's friend, Razumikhin's student: life is even more difficult for him than for the main character, since he does not have a loving mother who sends him money from her pension. At the same time, Razumikhin works a lot and finds the strength to endure all the hardships. He thinks little about his own person, but he is ready to help others, and not in the future, as Raskolnikov plans, but now. Razumikhin, a poor student, calmly assumes responsibility for Raskolnikov's mother and sister, probably because he truly loves and respects people, and does not ponder the problem of whether or not it is worthy to shed "blood according to conscience."

In the novel, the social content is closely intertwined with the philosophical (ideological): Raskolnikov's philosophical theory is a direct consequence of his desperate life circumstances. An intelligent and determined person, he thinks about how to fix an unjust world. Perhaps by violence? But is it possible forcibly, against will, to impose a fair society on people? The philosophical theme of the novel is the discourse on the "right to blood", that is, consideration of the "eternal" moral question: does a lofty end justify criminal means? The philosophical idea of ​​the novel is formulated as follows: no noble goal justifies murder, it is not a human matter to decide whether a person is worthy to live or not.

Raskolnikov kills the usurer Alena Ivanovna, whom the writer himself paints as extremely unattractive: “She was a tiny, dry old woman of about sixty, with keen and angry eyes, a small, pointed nose and simple hair. Her blond, slightly gray hair was greased with oil. On her thin and long neck, similar to a chicken leg, there was some kind of flannel rag ... ”(1, I). Alena Ivanovna evokes disgust, starting with the given portrait and despotic attitude towards sister Lizaveta and ending with her usurious activities, she looks like a louse (5, IV), sucking human blood. However, according to Dostoevsky, even such a disgusting old woman cannot be killed: any person is sacred and inviolable, in this respect all people are equal. According to Christian philosophy, the life and death of a person is in the hands of God, and people cannot decide this (therefore, murder and suicide are mortal sins). From the very beginning, Dostoevsky aggravated the murder of the malignant pawnbroker by the murder of the meek, unrequited Lizaveta. So, wanting to test his abilities as a superman and preparing to become a benefactor of all the poor and humiliated, Raskolnikov begins his noble activity by killing (!) An old woman and a holy fool, who looks like a big child, Lizaveta.

The attitude of the writer to the "right to blood" is clarified, among other things, in Marmeladov's monologue. Arguing about the Last Judgment, Marmeladov is sure that God will eventually accept not only the righteous, but also degraded drunkards, insignificant people like Marmeladov: “And he will say to us:“ You pigs! the image of the beast and its seal; but you also come! " (...) And he will stretch his hand towards us, and we will fall ... and weep ... and we will understand everything! Then we will understand everything! .. ”(1, II).

"Crime and Punishment" is a psychological novel, as it focuses on the description of the mental anguish of a person who has committed a murder. In-depth psychologism is a characteristic feature of Dostoevsky's work. One part of the novel is devoted to the crime itself, and the other five parts are devoted to the emotional experiences of the murderer. Consequently, the most important thing for a writer is to portray Raskolnikov's pangs of conscience and his decision to repent. A distinctive feature of Dostoevsky's psychologism is that he shows the inner world of a person "on the edge", being in a semi-delusional, semi-insane state, that is, the author is trying to convey a morbid mental state, even the subconscious of the heroes. This is how Dostoevsky's novels differ, for example, from the psychological novels of Leo Tolstoy, where the harmonious, varied and balanced inner life of the characters is presented.

So, the novel "Crime and Punishment" is an extremely complex work of fiction, in which the paintings of contemporary Dostoevsky's Russian life (60s of the XIX century) and discussions about the "eternal" question of mankind - about the "right to blood" are closely combined. The writer sees the way out of Russian society from the economic and spiritual crisis (otherwise it is called the first revolutionary situation) in the conversion of people to Christian values. He gives his own solution to the posed moral question: under no circumstances does a person have the right to judge - live or die for another, the moral law does not allow "blood according to conscience."

Thus, Dostoevsky's “eternal” question is resolved in an extremely humane manner, and the depiction of the life of the lower strata of society is also humane in the novel. Although the writer does not excuse either Marmeladov or Raskolnikov (they are largely to blame for their plight themselves), the novel is structured in such a way as to arouse sympathy from readers for these heroes.

Crime and Punishment is the first of Dostoevsky's five best novels. The writer himself attached great importance to this work: "The story that I am writing now is perhaps the best of all that I have written." He portrayed in the work such powerlessness and hopelessness of life, when a person has "nowhere to go". The novel "Crime and Punishment" was conceived by Dostoevsky while still in hard labor. Then it was called "Drunken", but gradually the idea of ​​the novel was transformed into a "psychological account of one crime." Dostoevsky himself, in a letter to the publisher M.I. ".

At the same time, the student wants to use the money received in this way for good purposes: to finish the course at the university, to help his mother and sister, to go abroad and “then all my life to be honest, firm, unswerving in fulfilling a humane duty to humanity”. In this statement of Dostoevsky, two phrases must be emphasized: a young man who lives in extreme poverty "and" subjected to some strange unfinished ideas. " It is these two phrases that are key to understanding Raskolnikov's cause-and-effect actions. What happened before: the plight of the hero, which led to illness and a painful theory, or the theory that caused Raskolnikov's terrible plight?

Dostoevsky in his novel depicts the collision of theory with the logic of life. According to the writer, a living life process, that is, the logic of life, always refutes, makes untenable any theory - both the most advanced, revolutionary, and the most criminal. This means that it is impossible to make life according to theory, and therefore the main philosophical idea of ​​the novel is revealed not in a system of logical proofs and refutations, but as a collision of a person possessed by an extremely criminal theory with life processes that refute this theory. Raskolnikov's theory is built on the inequality of people, on the chosenness of some and the humiliation of others. And the murder of the usurer is intended as a vital test of this theory on a separate example.

This way of depicting the murder very clearly shows the author's position: the crime committed by Raskolnikov is a dastardly affair, from the point of view of Raskolnikov himself. But he made it consciously, stepping over his human nature, over himself. By his crime Raskolnikov struck himself out of the category of people, became destitute, an outcast. I didn’t kill the old woman, I killed myself, ”he confessed to Sonya Marmeladova. This separation from society prevents Raskolnikov from living, his human nature does not accept this. It turns out that a person cannot walk without communicating with people, even such a proud person as Raskolnikov.

Therefore, the hero's struggle is becoming more and more intense, it goes in many directions, and each of them leads to a dead corner. Raskolnikov, as before, believes in the infallibility of his idea and hates himself for weakness, for mediocrity, over and over again calls himself a scoundrel. But at the same time, he suffers from the inability to communicate with his mother and sister, thinking about them as painfully as he thinks about the murder of Lizaveta. He tries not to do this, since you start to think, then you will certainly have to decide the question of where to place them in your theory - to what category of people. According to the logic, his theories belong to the "lower" category, and, so, the ax of another Raskolnikov may fall on their heads, and on the heads of Sonya, Polechka, Ekaterina Ivanovna. Raskolnikov should, according to his theory, abandon those for whom he suffers. He must hate, kill those he loves, and he cannot survive it.

For him, the thought that his theory is similar to the theories of Luzhin and Svidrigailov is unbearable, he hates them, but has no right to this hatred. “Mother, sister, how I love them! Why do I hate them now? " His human nature here collided most sharply with his inhuman theory. But the theory won out. And that is why Dostoevsky seems to come to the aid of the human nature of his hero. Immediately after this monologue, he gives Raskolnikov's third dream: he again kills the old woman, and she laughs at him. A dream in which the author brings Raskolnikov's crime to the people's court. This scene exposes all the horror of Raskolnikov's action. Dostoevsky does not show the moral revival of his hero, since his novel is not about that at all. The task of the writer was to show what power an idea can have over a person and how terrible and criminal this idea can be. Thus, the hero's idea of ​​the right of the strong to commit a crime turned out to be absurd. Life defeated theory.

The genre features of Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment cannot be delineated with definite boundaries. And not only because this work is complex in relation to its design and large in volume. You can name several different genre definitions, and each of them will be fair in its own way. The novel is philosophical, as it raises the problem of condemning militant individualism and the so-called "superpersonality" is in the center of attention. The novel is psychological, since we are talking, first of all, about human psychology, in its various, even painful manifestations. And to this we can add other more specific genre features associated with the very structure of the work: internal monologues, dialogues-discussions of the characters, pictures of the future world in which the idea of ​​individualism would reign. Also, the novel is polyphonic: each of the heroes asserts his own idea, that is, he has his own voice.

So, the diversity of the genre of "Crime and Punishment" is in this case the main condition for the successful creative implementation of the author's large-scale idea (his didactic attitude).

Genre features of the novel "Crime and Punishment"

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Plot, composition, genre features of the novel "Crime and Punishment"

FM Dostoevsky, as a writer, attached great importance to the entertaining narrative, was an unsurpassed master of a sharp, adventurous plot, captivating the reader, keeping him in suspense from the first to the last pages of the novel. No one has ever managed to combine a detective plot with the finest psychologism and depth of philosophical meaning.

"Crime and Punishment" - a novel about a crime, but refer it to a "criminal, detective"

The genre is not allowed, it is called a confession novel, a tragedy novel, one of the greatest philosophical and psychological novels. In the novel, for the reader there is no mystery about who the killer is, the plot develops around another: the narrative is structured in such a way that throughout its entire length we tensely follow every movement of Raskolnikov's inflamed thought, the lonely wanderings of his soul, the feverish change of decisions and contradictory actions.

Other characters in the novel are depicted in such a way that, without losing much of their independent significance, they, each in their own way, “explain” the drama that is unfolding

In the mind of Raskolnikov, between thoughts and soul. “. Raskolnikov is the only hero of the book. All the rest are projections of his soul. This is where the phenomenon of doubles finds an explanation. Each character, down to bystanders, up to the horse from Raskolnikov's dream, beaten to death, reflects a part of his personality ”(P. Weil, A. Genis.“ The Last Judgment ”). In Crime and Punishment, the story of the protagonist is closely intertwined with two storylines: the history of the Marmeladov family and the fate of Dunechka and Pulcheria Alexandrovna, as well as the related stories of Svidrigailov and Luzhin. These two parallel plots are closely related to Raskolnikov and his theory.

But not only the compositional center is Raskolnikov. The tragic rushes of his spirit involve all the actors in their orbit, each in his own way tries to explain the contradictions of his personality, to guess the secret of his fatal duality. With them, he has a passionate argument in his inner monologues. “Every face comes in. into his inner speech not as a character or type, not as a plot face of his life story (sister, sister's fiancé, etc.), but as a symbol of a certain life attitude and ideological position, as a symbol of a certain life solution to those very ideological issues that they torture him ”(M. M. Bakhtin). Razumikhin, Svidrigailov, Luzhin, Marmeladov, Sonya, Porfiry Petrovich become for Raskolnikov, as it were, an embodied resolution of his own question, “a resolution that does not agree with the one he himself has come to, therefore everyone touches him for a living and gets a solid role in his inner speech ”. Thus, Raskolnikov becomes the spiritual and ideological center of the novel.

The perfection of the composition "Crime and Punishment" is unmatched by FM Dostoevsky. Consisting of six parts and an epilogue, the novel, “built on a skilful orchestration of tensions, passes through two climaxes followed by catharsis. The first such point is crime. The second is punishment ”(P. Weil, A. Genis.“ The Last Judgment ”). Moreover, Dostoevsky writes more about punishment than Raskolnikov's crime: of the six parts, only one is devoted to the description of the crime, all the rest are a kind of analysis of the psychological state of the personality, the spiritual life of the hero, the motives of his crime. But even not punishment, but "the restoration of a lost person" most of all worries Dostoevsky as an artist and thinker, therefore, replacing each other, the novel sounds motives of condemnation and protection of Raskolnikov, growing to the epilogue, where the path to the hero's revival and his gradual renewal is outlined , for which you need to “pay. great, future feat ”. The entire poetics of the novel is subordinated to the main goal - the resurrection, the transformation of the hero. The landscape plays a special role in the epilogue. From the gloomy, stifling, oppressive Petersburg, the action is transferred to the banks of a wide and deserted river: “A wide neighborhood opened from the high bank. There, in the boundless steppe drenched in the sun, nomadic yurts were blackened with slightly noticeable dots. There was freedom and other people lived. "In harmony with the world and with himself, Raskolnikov is depicted in the epilogue," he was resurrected, and he knew it, he felt it with his whole being renewed. “. Raskolnikov's refusal from the inhuman “unfinished theory” and the return to eternal values ​​occurs only in the epilogue and is emphasized by the repeated epithet: “endless happiness,” “endless sources of life,” “endlessly loves,” “he will now redeem all her suffering with endless love.” On the pages of the epilogue, for the third time in the novel, the Gospel and the Resurrection of Lazarus are mentioned (for the first time - in a conversation with Porfiry Petrovich about Raskolnikov's article, the second time - when Sonya reads this legend to him, returning the reader to the main, deep thought of Dostoevsky - to his hope for “restoration fallen man "through communion with the Christian ideal of" great, common harmony, fraternal final consent of all. according to Christ's gospel law. "

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